


An Edge

by AlyssHarte



Category: American McGee's Alice
Genre: Alice in Wonderland References, Gen, One Shot, Victorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-07-31
Packaged: 2017-12-22 00:20:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/906682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlyssHarte/pseuds/AlyssHarte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something is broken, and Alice cannot begin to understand the extent to which this is true. Written around the opening scene of American McGee's Alice as if the game were a novel and this the first few pages.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Edge

Something is broken.

She lies at the foot of the bed, cheek pressed against the cold floor tile and her hands wrapped in the folds of a worn pinafore. Dirt clouds the once white fabric, matching the faint patches on her face. She has been here for quite some time.

Her breath spills over the tile. A sharp, rattling knock echoes through the room as a set of heavy keys collide with the exterior of the room's door. The echoes eventually fall silent, and she continues to glower into the air as if her gaze could penetrate matter itself and watch each speck of dust float down as she disturbs them. This is not what is broken, but to her it is all the same.

The knock comes again, more uncertain this time. A voice calls out. "Alice?"

The invisible dust settles onto the tile. Kind, sagging eyes peer through the window in the door, attempting to make out any recognizable shapes. A brief panic shoots through the nurse as the darkness before her gives way to the image of an empty bed. Her hands fumble to unlock the door. "Alice!"

Chest heaving, she thrusts herself into the room with all the speed she possesses in that bowed, aging body. There's nothing but shadows—only morphing spheres of black and, oh, what has she done? The only window is, of course, barred.

_Alice, what have you done?_

"Miss Moore, you've stepped on my rabbit."

"Good heavens!" The nurse bends her weary spine to see where the quiet voice came from. Squinting, the shape of a young woman appears before her. The woman's dark hair hangs languidly in her face, though through gaps in the tresses the nurse is startled to see wide, shimmering green eyes gazing at nothing at all.

"Yes, dear?" the nurse tries again. "What did you say?"

"I said, 'Miss Moore, you've stepped on my rabbit.' Below you, you see."

Squinting down at a sharper angle, the nurse sees and carefully removes her foot from the indent it has created in the raggedy toy. "Why have you left him on the floor, dear?" she says, carefully placing it against the pillow on the white-washed bed.

"It makes little difference where I leave him, as he always finds his way back to me," Alice snaps.

The nurse, not having yet heard such a sharp set of words be uttered by the young woman, steps back in apparent fright.

"No, no," Alice continues, her voice descending into something resembling the mutters spoken by other patients. "It isn't you who should be swallowed by fear."

"Who, then?"

The green eyes turn slowly in their sockets, peering up at the nurse. "Must anyone?"

“No, dear. I suppose not.” Gently, she stoops to place her hands around Alice’s shoulders. The weak muscles underneath tighten, bristling at the touch of foreign flesh. “There, there… Into bed you go.”

Alice’s head droops slowly into the hollow of her pillow, all voluntary movement absent. The nurse, fearing that the slightest separation would cause the girl’s body to turn to ice, keeps her plump hand on Alice’s arm. No reciprocation comes. No loving strokes, as if Alice were her own daughter. It is all broken.

“Where did they get the rabbit?” Alice suddenly asks. Underneath the innocent question, the nurse distinctly hears the quiver in the girl’s voice.

“What do you mean? A family friend brought it round for you this morning. Didn’t you miss your rabbit?”

“It’s scorched.” Alice’s teeth grind, the sound calling bile to the nurse’s throat.

“W-well, dear, that’s becau—“

“Is it from our house? Was it burned in the fire, like they were? Did it scream like they did?”

Her eyes take on a maddening glint, and the vibrant green seems to be swallowed entirely by the force of this. Icy chills trickle from her flesh to the nurse’s, and the hand touching her so sweetly is wrenched back.

“Alice, you need to rest now. I’ll call the doctor for you; he’ll give you some lovely medicine to help you sleep.”

“I don’t want to sleep. I need a better escape than that.”

On hearing this, the mother inside the nurse feels her poor heart sink until it feels bruised from the pressure. All those years… The girl’s still watching those horrific scenes in her mind as she used to watch the illustrations pass by in her childhood books. Those, too, had burned to ashes.

“Well, all right. Please don’t lie on the floor, though. It’s so terribly chill. We wouldn’t want you to fall ill again.”

“No. We wouldn’t.”

The nurse paces backwards, her eyes following Alice as if she is prepared to fulfill her suggestion and call the doctor on staff. The patient, however, has ceased to care for the nurse’s presence and stares into the distance, watching specks of dust again. The pale lids never fall; the vibrant eyes are never covered.

From her place on the bed, Alice hears voices in the hall. “Poor dear… After all those years… Maybe that old rabbit will bring her around.”

Rain begins to patter outside the barred window, tapping against the glass in a rhythm equal to that of the chaos in Alice’s head. Thunder claps in the dark sky. Slowly, her arm brings the tattered rabbit closer to her chest, where the worn heart seems to have come to a standstill. It’s a childish gesture she wouldn’t have displayed before the asylum’s staff, though it brings a flicker of comfort to her. Her fingers tighten in its soft fur.

“Save us, Alice!”

Mouth agape, she stares into the button eye of the rabbit, and it’s living. It isn’t breathing, but it lives. Desperation pours from its stitched mouth with those words—desperation that revives Alice’s heart and sets it drumming with the rain.

Her eyes turn up in her head, and in this moment of blindness she loses her grip on the rabbit. Fingers claw through the thin bed sheets, tearing fabric and nails until she is out of breath. The room has disappeared. All is dark. She clutches through the air, and she feels nothing but the passage of air whipping past the spaces between her fingers.

_There, there. Into bed with you._

A soft thud sounds from somewhere below. Eyes snapping open, Alice lets out a cracked scream as her vision is filled with a blinding, icy blue.

When the impact comes, it is not unpleasant, though she feels and hears her knees making shallow dents in the ground. The world stills itself, and, yet, she is no longer in the world. Brushing out the rumpled skirts of her dress and pinafore, she urges herself to stand.

Before her, though she is hardly surprised, stands the looming figure of the rabbit. Gone is the inanimate button eye, and in its place sit two bulging eyes that focus on her with flickering pinprick pupils. He stands to his full height, wringing his gloved hands in anxiety before beckoning her forward.

“Please don’t dawdle, Alice. We’re very late indeed!”


End file.
